When was the last time you volunteered your time or gave to charity? When was the last time you opened the door for a stranger? Doing nice things for other people can boost your mood, make you feel good about yourself, and it can even help with your health.

Think of how good you feel when you smile at someone and they smile back, or when you hold open a door for someone and they thank you. It makes you smile or it makes your smile bigger, and it warms your heart. Here are some of the things that doing good will do for you.

Boost Your Mood

If you’re having a bad day and finding it hard to smile try doing something kind. A simple random act of kindness can change another person’s day, and it can help change your bad day into a good one. You’ll know that you did something that helped out another person.

Being more giving will help you feel better about yourself, which can help fight depression. Instead of letting your depression win over do something to help another person feel better and it will, in turn, make you feel better.

Help You Relate Better To Others

Volunteering your time with those that are less privileged than you is a great way to start to better understand other people. It gives you a new look at humanity and allows you to see that while everyone is human not everyone has lived the same life or had the same opportunities. It can be a real eye opener.

There are plenty of ways to volunteer in any community. Pick up a local paper, visit a church, or talk to your local librarian. All of these people/things can point you in the right direction for finding all kinds of volunteer opportunities.

Boost Your Confidence

Doing good things for other people is also a great confidence booster. You prove to yourself that you can do something that helps humankind and something that is for the greater good. That is one of the best feelings in the world.

The thing is, when you give yourself and your time to other people you stop noticing what you’re wearing, what your hair look like, and what your makeup looks like, and you realize that your heart is the thing about you that is most beautiful and it shines through when you volunteer your time and do kind things for other people.

So, when was the last time you helped someone carry their groceries to the care, gave someone the change they were short on at the register or spent some time helping to weed the local community garden? Get out there and do something, make your heart proud.